The Last Dreamer by Barbara Solomon Josselsohn

bottle and I’d eat my muffin as we watched the bigger children in the playground. And that muffin always tasted so good.”
    She stopped talking, hypnotized by the memory. She remembered the sun on her shoulders, and the sound of Matthew sucking rhythmically on his bottle. She remembered seeing the children playing, framed by the tall, green trees in the park and the high-rise buildings on Fifth Avenue. She remembered going home and giving Matthew a bath and then closing the blinds and watching him fall asleep in her arms. Later, when he woke up, she would put on a CD with children’s songs by artists like James Taylor, Nicolette Larson, and Kenny Loggins, and dance around the living room, holding him. That’s how Marc would find them when he got home—dancing in the living room. And he’d take off his suit jacket and tie, roll up his sleeves and unbutton the top buttons of his shirt, and join them. She loved that he didn’t take the time to change his clothes. He had missed them that much.
    “We spent every day like that,” she said. “And on those long summer days . . . I felt like I found the meaning of life.” She smiled, enjoying how wistful she felt. She’d never expressed these feelings before to anyone, not even Marc. Maybe she’d been too scared of missing it all too much. She had seen many things drift away in her life: her dreams of becoming a famous writer; her excitement at being a newly minted reporter; the warm pleasure of falling in love with Marc; their wedding; the birth of their first baby, Matthew; and the birth of their daughter, Dara. She had relished their babyhoods completely. But they were over. What was there now to look forward to? Teenage rebellions? More fights with Marc? An empty nest? Illness? Old age?
    “Yeah, well,” Jeff said, looking a bit unnerved at how personal the conversation had become. “I guess you wouldn’t want them to stay babies forever. How old are they now?”
    “Fourteen and twelve.”
    “So you must know that watching them grow up is fun, too. I mean, yeah, the teenage years can be rough. Our oldest, Katie, she was dating this real loser for a while, but thankfully that’s over. And these days I really like my daughters. I like the people they’ve become. So does Catherine, my wife.”
    Iliana looked up. Now that he had mentioned his wife, she wanted to know more about her. She was curious: Who was the woman who had married the guy thousands of teenage girls across the country adored?
    “Tell me about your wife,” she said.
    “She’s a dancer,” he answered, no longer reticent. In fact, it looked like now he was the one who was enjoying being questioned. “She teaches ballet at Purchase College, when she’s not managing the back-office stuff for Downs Textiles. That’s how we met. She danced on Guitar Dreams sometimes, for the party scenes. Those scenes were a blast.”
    “Aha!” she said playfully. “So you did enjoy being a star.”
    “It’s like I said, it was complicated. It had its ups and downs. Although most of the downs came after the whole thing was over.” He paused, looking at her. “You really want to interview me about the Dreamers? You really think it’s essential for the article?”
    She nodded.
    He leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table. “The reason I don’t often talk about those days is because to a lot of people it’s a joke. Four talentless guys who got paid to smile at the camera—that’s what they think. Like that idiot today who brought up the ‘dreamin’ to the max’ line. Barely old enough to drink and he tries to look clever by making me the butt of his joke.
    “Look,” he said, leaning in closer. “I stopped doing media interviews a while ago because no matter what I said, the reporters always ended up talking about pretty-boy looks and bubblegum music. And the only reason I said yes to you was because I could really use the publicity about my blankets in the Times . But I saw the look on